HI, ALL – sorry the blog hasn’t been updated for quite some time. We’re having some technical issues paired with lives so full we haven’t had time to connect with the support team. We hope to resolve this sometime soon.? In the meantime, check our discsion group at Ravelry.com for links to the more recent episodes.?

Thanks, The TwinSet

In which we discs how short was the interval between this and the last episode (and yet in which we manage to create almost an hour of audio), jumping the broom, work interfering with knitting, and the fact that Squishy the Squid truly is a squid (and not what others have intimated). Pl, we have another visit from Dr. Yarn!

In which we discs Ellen’s travels to Sweden for World Water Week (there was no wave pool or water slides), apple trees, quick visits with New York daughters, winning state fair entries, squid knitting, and have a short visit with Dr. Yarn and an essay on “Why We Farm.”

In which we discs a fun new craft-a-long with Mastering the Knits, how California’s drought is really all of ours, anniversaries (36 for Jan and 35 for Ellen), ?crazy highjinx at minor league baseball games (did I mention cowboy monkeys?), boondoggles to Lake Tahoe for frozen toes, some fun finished objects, a review of “A Knitter’s Gallery of Mitred Squares – 45 Unique Designs in color, Texture, and Lace” by Jill Begelow Suttell and Jane Bigelow, and Jan’s new pattern and at the begining of which Jan gets to congratulate the Knitmores on new baby Rex!

In which we give a recap of TwinSet Summer Camp 2015, reaching 1,000 members, the shenanigans of the lamb Squirrel, a Seattle trip including visits to Tolt and So Much Yarn (and Starbucks!), knits for Vlad and being underwater with our knitting.

In which we take forever to actually start the show, are visited by two delightful guests, and discs new babies, knitting for new babies, surprise father’s day visits on the farm, snack foods and cat discipline.

In which we discs Shetland wool week, secret handshakes, hoecleaning by buying magazines, new plants and new lambs!!, knitting for big feet, the ‘Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ and all the other wonder out there, getting cranky and lots of other stuff!

In which we discs gift bearing alpaca, four more little lambs and precocio ram lambs, downsizing stuff to make it possible to close drawers, but maybe not so much as to fit in tiny hoes and other fun stuff.

Thanks to listeners, old and new, for joining !? Consider joining at TwinSet Summer Camp, too. It’s going to be great fun, and there is still plenty of room to join in July, the 10-12th to be exact.? The registration form can be found here. Please consider coming for a relaxing weekend of knitting in the woods (and enjoying great camp food. No lie, the chef at this camp really is good!).

In the aming and eful category, check out the Ravelry group thread in which RobinV actually applies one of our slick tricks with great success.

Patterns of Our Lives:

Ellen has been inspired by the movie Tiny: A Story About Living Small to try to downsize her stuff enough for a future move to a smaller hoe. Or at least enough to be able to close all of her drawers. Jan’s life is expanding, though, to include yet more sweet lambikins. (Hey, don’t mock me, you try to look at the pictures she is posting on Instagram without calling them “lambikins”.) The four newcomers are all ewe lambs. I can’t imagine how many lambs will be on the farm next year!

Jan also made some quick work trips, and she has a “special project” at work that is eating her life.? So…

Finely or Finally Knit

…Ellen is the only one with a major finished object this week.? Her Abria cardigan, designed by Bonne Marie Burns, is delighting her.? She knit it out of StraightFork Farm 60:40 huacayo:wool, on size 5 Signature circulars and the fabric is lh and drapey and wonderful.

Jan did finish another baby hat — this one intended for someone special who will arrive this fall (yup, Jan’s grandnephew (and Ellen’s grandson)). She ed Tunisian crochet in-the-round and worked it up in no time.

And there is still time for you to finely finish a baby hat — get a soft, washable hat to Kiley by the end of May and mention our podcast and you will be entered in a contest for a skein of Wollmeise (in addition to the drawing that everyone is entered into).? Full info on her Ravelry page where she is Minipurlgirl.

On the Runway

Ellen enjoyed her classes with Myrna Stahman and San B Anderson at Yarnover and is making progress on the class projects, a Shetland lace scarf out of Jamieson’s Ultra and a funny kitty-cat based on San’s Build-a-Toy Workshop. By the way, check out San’s upcoming book, Kid’s Knitting Workshop. We think it would be fun for new adult knitters, too.

Jan is well into the second sleeve on her Making Waves cardigan in gorgeo yarn she scored at Maryland Sheep & Wool – Bijou Basin’s Seraphim. But she’s got a ways to go to finish, as she hasn’t done the body yet.

The baby Norwegian sweater, Geilo, a Dale of Norway design, has gotten some of Ellen’s attention, too, and she is well into the body.

Bitten by our Knittin’

Ellen ended up knitting the decreases in her sweater sleeves as though she were knitting a smaller size. It really didn’t affect the final outcome much, so she is calling it a feature. A dropped stitch in the body of her baby Norwegian sweater was not a feature, it was a mistake, but it is laddered back up and is under control.

Jan had lots of dropped stitches as her double-pointed needles kept falling out of her sleeves in that slippery angora Seraphim yarn. She’s got a slick trick to solve that though, so read on!

Design Principles

A mistake is a feature if you can reasonably assert that a designer might have chosen to do it that way and you might choose to keep it.? But some mistakes are jt that, mistakes, and need to be corrected.

360 Degrees

Ellen let loose of her desire to control her yarn and spun up some art batts into wildly textured and soft yarn – alpaca, silk, and angora made for slubby but beautiful stuff. The angora was actually angora goat, Ellen thinks, becae there is some very mohair-looking fiber but not really any bunny-looking fiber.

Fiber Jargon

Jan discses range or territory wool and why yarn from small producers may cost more.

Embellishments

Ellen is unduly thrilled to have a new vacuum cleaner. Well, maybe not unduly. Her prior vacuum was about 25 years old after all.? Jan was thrilled at being bombed by her daughter and daughter-in-law.? They gave her bath bombs, like scented Fizzies for her tub.

Fun Fur

Abracadabra! yarn by HiKoo changes color from cream to bright pink and purple when you go out in the sun. Ellen got hers from StevenBe (I’m sure they would do mail order). She sees fun designs in her future. Jan sees more fun petting lamb’s fur in her future.

Slick Trick

Ellen loves Myrna Stahman’s trick for adding tails to simple ring stitch markers. The thin crochet cotton weaves in and out of your project as you knit, so if you accidentally slip the marker off your needle, it can’t go far. And Jan likes thick rubber bands for holding the stitches on her sleeves together, caing them to grip the needle jt a bit tighter so the needles doesn’t slip out as easily.? She finds that if she slips a rubber band around the sleeve an inch or so below the live stitches, it gathers them together on the needle and makes it less likely that the needle will go slip sliding away.
You May Already be a Wiener

We’ll draw a winner for our contest for Lara Neel‘s Craftsy Class, Socks My Way next episode. And if you can’t wait to take the class, take advantage of the 50% off code Lara has gracioly shared with (click class link).

Fashion Forecast for 2015

Ellen is looking forward to the Zombie Knitpocalypse, even though she has figured out that she’ll have to come home early becae of another conflict. She’ll miss the market, so maybe she can still fit into a smaller hoe. And both twins have plans for summer…

…TwinSet Summer Camp!? July 10-12, 2015.? Registration form can be found here:

https://app.box.com/files/0/f/0/1/f_26386300459

Registration fee of $265 includes:?A real bed for Friday and Saturday night! ?With back-pampering Tempurpedic mattresses! ?Meals served family style in the camp lodge, Friday supper through Sunday brunch. Special diets are well-looked after, please note requirements on registration form.?Lots of camp activities, like knitting by the river, knitting by the swimming pool, hiking into the woods to knit, singing campfire songs while knitting, making and eating s’mores (no knitting!), and more. ?We hope to have some vendors, and we’ll schedule one knitting/craft class, but the name of the game for the weekend is relax in the woods, let someone else do the cooking, and knit and enjoy each other!

In which we discs a dinner for more than two in DC, visits from dear friends (military friends and podcaster friends!), a fun speaking engagement, a visit to DC by Karen, getting the Full Monty, biking around mother nature, Yarnover, Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, and baby lambs (!!!!), and in which Ellen’s geeks out.

Thanks to stalwart listeners, old and new, for joining !? TwinSet Summer Camp has hit a critical mass of campers to be great fun, but there is still plenty of room to join in July, the 10-12th to be exact.? The registration form can be found here. Please consider coming for a relaxing weekend of knitting in the woods (and enjoying great camp food. No lie, the chef at this camp really is good!).

Listeners, please note there is still a need for small bits of handspun for the “Welcoming the Stranger” art installation in Portland. The weaving is being called “Abraham’s Tent” and you can find more information from welcomingthestrangerart@gmail.com OR on Facebook: Welcoming the Stranger Art OR Ravelry. Abraham’s Tent Donations will be accepted till July 2015.?

Patterns of Our Lives:

The twins got together for a short visit while Ellen attended a stainability conference in Washington, DC. Short, but sweet. And Ellen visited the fishing cats at the National Zoo, too. She enjoyed seeing them wake up and stretch. Jan was by enjoying seeing Fulton Theater production of the Full Monty, including a little unintended fully full monty peek!

Ellen finished her simply stole.? The pattern name: Stole.? In nine stripes of Rach-Al-Paca Suri alpaca in ltro colors ranging from deep orange through creams and on to greens and blues, it simply pleases her.

And Jan finally finished Felfs out of Paton’s Classic Wool Roving for her son.? She also worked up a little baby hat for Kiley (aka MiniPurlGirl) and her project to raise awareness about Shaken Baby Syndrome. Get a hat to Kiley by the end of May and mention our podcast and you will be entered in a contest for a skein of Wollmeise (in addition to the drawing that everyone is entered into).

On the Runway

Jan continues working on prototype validation of the Tangled Vines Socks out of Pediboo from Frog Tree Yarns, an 80/20 merino/bamboo blend in colorway 1164 light teal, a semi-solid. She reports that the dropped stitch that caed her to frog last episode was a blessing in disguise as she cast on with slightly larger needles and is enjoying a more relaxed knit.

Ellen is working on Abria, a Bonne Marie Burnes or Chic Knit pattern, knitting it out of StraightFork Farm 60:40 huacayo:wool, on size 5 Signature circulars.? She’s on to the 3/4 length sleeves and hopes to finish the sweater jt in time for heavy air-conditioning season.

Ellen is almost to the body on the baby Norwegian sweater, Geilo, from Dale of Norway.

Bitten by our Knittin’

Ellen’s is pretending that in her final stripe on her stole that she didn’t accidentally convert the 8×8 ribbing to 7×9 in one spot. You’ll never notice, right?

Jan reports that the thumb on one of her mitts for which the fit didn’t seem quite right, was actually jt fine after blocking.

Ellen and W are cracking up at old episodes of Star Trek. And Jan is enjoying the cute little llama that the Savvy Girls brought her from Maryland Sheep and Wool!

Slick Trick

Ellen suggests that one starts out to finish – when you know you will need to pick up stitches along a cast on edge, make the first row a plain knit row even if the pattern is lacy. It will be much easier to pick those stitches up.

Jan suggests ing a Channel Island Cast-on followed by a row of k1,p1 ribbing to start Tunisian Crochet in the round. She likes not having to pick up stitches in a slip stitch chain, which can be fiddly.

You May Already be a Wiener

LauraKnitsPA won Judy Becker’s book Beyond Toes. But don’t despair, a new contest for Lara Neel‘s Craftsy Class, Socks My Way has started. And if you can’t wait to take the class, take advantage of the 50% off code Lara has gracioly shared with .

Fashion Forecast for 2015

Ellen? has plans to attend Shepherd’s Harvest. Jan has plans to dash to San Diego and back. And both twins have plans for summer.

And with summer comes TwinSet Summer Camp!? July 10-12, 2015.? Registration form can be found here:

https://app.box.com/files/0/f/0/1/f_26386300459

Registration fee of $265 ($240 if registration postmarked prior to April 30)includes:?A real bed for Friday and Saturday night! ?With back-pampering Tempurpedic mattresses! ?Meals served family style in the camp lodge, Friday supper through Sunday brunch. Special diets are well-looked after, please note requirements on registration form.?Lots of camp activities, like knitting by the river, knitting by the swimming pool, hiking into the woods to knit, singing campfire songs while knitting, making and eating s’mores (no knitting!), and more. ?We hope to have some vendors, and we’ll schedule one knitting/craft class, but the name of the game for the weekend is relax in the woods, let someone else do the cooking, and knit and enjoy each other!

Thanks to listeners, old and new, for joining ! And Ellen sends a special thanks to Mary of The Knitting Dish for her sweet comments on Ellen’s design, Diana’s Quiver socks. To all of our listeners, we send the encouragement to consider attending TwinSet Summer Camp in July, the 10-12th to be exact.? The registration form can be found here.

Ellen and Jan discs a fantastic charity project –

Kiley is a senior in high school and as her capstone community service project, she is taking on the very serio issue of Shaken Baby Syndrome. She’s ing knitting to bring it to parents’ attention in the form of handknit purple baby hats. She sent me a note about it: “I’m writing to ask if you could possibly knit or crochet a purple hat for my Click for Babies project for my senior year capstone. I need to collect 50 hats by the end of May and I could really e some help. I will also be writing a brochure to hand out at a local hospital to parents of new babies. If there’s anyway you could make a hat with at least 50% purple yarn, I would be very appreciative. Kiley is MiniPurlGirl on Ravelry and you can PM her there to get her address if you’d like to send a hat. And if you do, your name will be thrown in a hat for a chance to win a skein of purple Wolmeise. And I’m going to sweeten the pot – tell Kiley you heard about her project here on TwinSet Designs and I will have her do a second drawing from our listeners who knit hats for a skein of Wolmeise from my stash!

(Ellen adds: Even though Kiley needs your hats by end of May, if you are reading this a bit too late, consider checking out the Click website above to find other ways to contribute to this great effort.)

Patterns of Our Lives:

Ellen and W took a wonderful nature hike at Carver Park Reserve near Victoria, MN, seeing ospreys, a big ol’ snapping turtle, a pair of swans – maybe trumpeters!, a cute little chipmunk, and a beautiful common garter snake.? Jan didn’t see the nature (probably a raccoon) that made away with one of her ducks and took it on a trip to Florida. Jan also wasn’t there to see the shearing, but her gratitude to D was present as he managed it all. Jan had a good exce – graduation at her university. I guess the Chancellor should be present for graduation.

Finely or Finally Knit

If you can count them, and Ellen does, she finished Master Knitter Level III swatches 1-3. Jan finished her very own Paving Mitts.
On the Runway

While only Ellen had finished items, both twins have stuff in progress. Jan continues prototyping her Top Stitch Mittens and is very happy with the design now.? She’s working a sample set out of Kihoo Kenzie 50% Merino, 25% Nylon and 10% Angora, 10% alpaca and 5% silk noils in Tekapo, a dark teal color 1013 and Kiwi, a yellow-green color 1007.

She is also working on prototype validation of the Tangled Vines Socks out of Pediboo from Frog Tree Yarns, an 80/20 merino/bamboo blend in colorway 1164 light teal, a semi-solid. Could it be that we will see some patterns from Jan in the near future?

Ellen continues work on? simply stole.? The pattern name: Stole.? She is up to stripe eight of nine colors of Rach-Al-Paca Suri alpaca in ltro colors ranging from deep orange through creams and on to greens and blues.

She’s also working on Abria, a Bonne Marie Burnes or Chic Knit pattern, knitting it out of StraightFork Farm 60:40 huacayo:wool, on size 5 Signature circulars.? She’s about 8″ below the armscye.? 3/4 length sleeves will finish the sweater jt in time for heavy air-conditioning season.

Finally, she is doing a reprise on a pattern knit several years back for a really special baby, one that had been longed for over years by the mother and whose birth was a wonderful celebration. This is the baby Norwegian sweater, Geilo, from Dale of Norway. It takes a very special baby to get her to knit this sweater again, and boy, howdy,does she have a very special baby to knit it for.? And a boy at that. That baby boy is Jan’s grandnephew, due in late September!

Jan is working on more Felfs out of Paton’s Classic Wool Roving, her Tangled Vines Socks out of Pediboo from Frog Tree, and she is grading her designs for the Fast Baby Booties out of? Schoppel Wool Reggae Ombre.

Bitten by our Knittin’

Ellen’s provisional cast-on got away from her. That isn’t very easy to pick up, but it can be done with patience. A bigger issue is when one misses one of those dreaded “at the same times”. She had to frog back a few inches of her Abria sweater so she could do both the short rows and the decreases specified on the cardi front at the same time.

Jan suffered a dropped stitch in her Pediboo socks and that has held up her progress while she figures out what next. And she isn’t sure she loves the thumb on one of her mitts – the fit isn’t quite right, so that may be a bite that needs medical attention.

Ready to Wear

Ellen is excited to be working with some great designers, Gale Zucker, Kirsten Kapur, and Mary Lou Egan, as their tech editor for an upcoming book. The details are under wraps, but you can be sure you’ll hear more about it later!

Jan developed a mini-sock to show off the RTW from Dale – his sock needle storage tubes, available at Maryland Sheep & Wool.

What Would San Ask?

If you could be a knit designer to anyone in the world, who would it be? Well, heck, this was easy to answer. Ellen would knit for Jan’s impending grandnephew and Jan would knit for Ellen’s impending grandson.

360 Degrees

Ellen continues spinning on all sorts of spindles. Her supported spinning on a Rsian spindle, ing baby camel, has resulted in ~545 yards after it was plied with Pagewood Farms Artesana merino singles. Jan finished the spinning of alpaca judging samples.

Fiber Jargon

Jan proposes that the fiber that is applied to a center strand in the core spinning technique be called cladding, much as the coating of the center of fiber optic cables is covered by cladding. We haven’t been able to find other terms for that outer fiber, so at least for , cladding it is.

Embellishments

Jan acquired a Mother Hen at a local mud sale — it’s her new cast iron bank.? It has a momma hen on it with a little chick that can move on a spring loaded rail.? When extended away from mom the chick will lock in place and you can put a coin in a groove set in it’s chest.? Pull the little lever and baby chick goes running to momma and deposits the coin in the bank.? And when I say it goes running, I really mean it goes slamming into momma!? I put a little video on Instagram and you can actually see the bank jump when chick meets hen!

Fun Fur

Mini-cheeseburgers.? ’nuff said.

Slick Trick

When working stranded knitting while purling, it is not possible to catch the floats in the stitches as you go, as you can with knitting. If the next row has a knit stitch in the vicinity of the long float, jt make the float a bit looser than ual and catch it the next round.

And for podcasters – if your pop filter goes missing, try putting a sock on it. On your microphone, to be specific, to prevent your P’s from popping.

Both twins point out – it isn’t too early to think about summer.? And with summer comes TwinSet Summer Camp!? July 10-12, 2015.? Registration form can be found here:

https://app.box.com/files/0/f/0/1/f_26386300459

Registration fee of $265 ($240 if registration postmarked prior to April 30)includes:?A real bed for Friday and Saturday night! ?With back-pampering Tempurpedic mattresses! ?Meals served family style in the camp lodge, Friday supper through Sunday brunch. Special diets are well-looked after, please note requirements on registration form.?Lots of camp activities, like knitting by the river, knitting by the swimming pool, hiking into the woods to knit, singing campfire songs while knitting, making and eating s’mores (no knitting!), and more. ?We hope to have some vendors, and we’ll schedule one knitting/craft class, but the name of the game for the weekend is relax in the woods, let someone else do the cooking, and knit and enjoy each other!

About

Jan and Ellen are identical twins who have always had an innate fashion sense. Crafting is an integral part of their lives and they stay stitched together sharing their love of knitting, family and community.